


Pink Rubber Duckie

by Ruuger



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Community: redjohnlovesyou, Gen, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-09
Updated: 2011-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-23 14:23:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/251300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/pseuds/Ruuger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days it's like herding a group of kindergarteners...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink Rubber Duckie

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere during the non-angsty parts of early season 2.

It was on days like this that Lisbon liked her job most. They'd just closed a major case, and there hadn't yet been a new case for them to start working on, and so just for the moment she could sit back and relax and pretend that all the bad guys were behind bars and everyone in the whole world was safe. As an added bonus, they had managed to close the case with unusually little paperwork thanks to a suspect who'd been thoughtful enough to confess before Jane had time to set up one of his 'clever ruses'.

She was now sitting in her office, taking the opportunity to catch up on her paperwork for cases that hadn't gone quite as smoothly. The only thing that could have improved the day was chocolate, but even though she'd been craving a Hershey bar all morning, she had decided to wait until finishing the paperwork. It would be her reward for yet another day spent fighting crime and lawyers with liability forms and incident reports.

Through her open door she could hear Jane and the others talking in the bullpen, their voices a soothing background murmur as she worked on her report. She was just trying to come up with a better way to phrase the sentence "by making the suspect think he was god" when suddenly Rigsby’s voice rose above others, catching her attention.

“No they’re not! You’re making that up!”

She looked up from her screen and focused on the voices outside just in time to hear Jane reply in that frustratingly reasonable tone of voice he used when he was trying to get a rise out of someone.

“I’m just stating the facts. Ask Grace to google it for you if you don’t believe me.”

She debated with herself for a few seconds whether finding out what was going on would be worth the trouble, but finally saved her report and left her office, making her way to the bullpen.

The first member of her team she saw was Rigsby, who was standing in the middle of the room, hugging his coffee mug in front of him like a shield. Van Pelt was sitting at her desk, eating a take-away salad, Cho was reading a book, and Jane... Jane was lounging on the couch, looking perfectly innocent, which usually was a sure sign that he was to blame for whatever it was that was going on.

Rigsby looked from Jane to Cho with an anxious look on his face.

“Cho, back me up here, man.”

Cho turned a page, not looking up. “No way. I’m staying out of this.”

He turned to Van Pelt. “Grace?”

She shook her head, clearly trying not to laugh. "Sorry."

Lisbon cleared her throat. "What's going on here?"

Rigsby spun around, a guilty look on his face.

“Jane started it,” he spluttered.

“ _Jane started it?_ What are you, four?” Without giving Rigsby a chance to reply, she turned to Jane. “What did you do now?”

Jane gave her an indignant look. “We were just talking about television. And why does everyone always assume that everything is my fault?”

“Because statistically speaking it always is. I have excel sheets to prove it.” She looked from Jane to Rigsby to Cho to Van Pelt, and then sighed. “This is about something utterly stupid, isn’t it?”

Cho continued reading his book. Van Pelt and Rigsby looked away sheepishly. Jane just smirked, and conjured a Hershey bar from his pocket.

She rolled her eyes.

“Rigsby, you're a grown man for god's sake, so start acting your age. And Jane....”

Jane was now gleefully unwrapping the candy bar, just to spite her, she was sure. The bastard. She scowled at him and then quickly crossed the room to the couch and snatched the candy from his hand.

“Hey! You can’t do that! That’s police brutality."

She silenced him with a glare. “Watch me. And stop picking on Rigsby.”

She turned around on her heels and marched back into her office. As she sat down behind her desk she heard Rigsby's voice from the bullpen.

“I don’t care what you say, Bert and Ernie are not gay!”

Lisbon tossed a soft paper weight at her door to close it and then leaned back in her chair and took a bite of the candy bar before continuing with the paperwork.


End file.
